Oliver Stone Disagrees with Hugo Chavez: Obama's Not a Leftist, But ‘Very Much a Centrist’

(CNSNews.com) -- Academy Award-winning film director Oliver Stone says he disagrees with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s comment that President Barack Obama--considering his nationalization of General Motors--could end up to Chavez's political left. On the contrary, Stone insisted that Obama is “very much a centrist.”

At the National Press Club on Wednesday, CNSNews.com asked Stone, “When the federal government took over ownership of General Motors, Hugo Chavez said that President Obama could actually end up to the left of him. Would you agree with President Chavez’s statement, at this point?”

Stone said, “No, not at all. I think Obama’s very much a centrist at a time of great change. Yeah.”

On a live television broadcast last June, Chavez said, "Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right.”

Stone was in Washington, D.C., to promote his new film, “South of the Border,” which documents his trip across South America to speak with political leaders and examine the leftist policies emerging in the region. The film contains interviews with Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Raul Castro of Cuba and other political leaders.

Some reviews have been critical of Stone's film. TIME magazine, for example, called the film “amateur night as cinema, as lopsided and cheerleadery as its worldview.”